Fight the Future Read Online Free Page A

steps of one of the city buses, while other buses pulled away from the curb in clouds of exhaust.
    People ran pell-mell across the plaza, headed for the relative safety of the far side of the street, where police barricades had been hastily erected, and where uniformed men frantically directed the last stragglers to flee.
    "Go, now !" bullhorns howled, and their echo rang out above the cries and shouting of the panicking mob.
    The plaza in front of the building was all but empty now. As the last buses roared off, the fire engines did the same, and the police cars, until only a single police car and one anony-mous sedan remained, engines running, at curbside. The revolving doors whooshed as Scully and Mulder raced out, heading across the plaza to the waiting cars. Abruptly Mulder slowed, then stopped. He shaded his eyes and stared back at the building.
    "What are you doing?" Scully had gone on ahead, but suddenly noticed his hesitation. "Mulder?"
    A solitary figure in FBI windbreaker burst from the revolving door: the last man out.
    "All clear!" he shouted, his footsteps echo-ing as he ran toward the idling cop car. Mulder ignored him and remained staring as though entranced by the building.
    "Something's wrong…"
    Scully hurried to his side. " Mulder ?"
    The cop car zoomed away. In the sole remaining vehicle, an FBI agent gazed in disbe-lief at Mulder, then yelled, "What's he doing?!"
    "Something's not right," Mulder said, as though to himself. Scully shook her head and grabbed his arm.
    "Mulder! Get in the car!" In the waiting vehicle the agent motioned at them furiously. "There's no time, Mulder!"
    She pulled him after her, heading for the car. Mulder twisted to stare over his shoulder.
    "Michaud…" he said.
    In the vending room, Michaud had replaced the wire clippers and shut his tool chest. Now he was sitting on it, his eyes fixed on the LED display.
    ¦30
    He watched as the seconds disappeared, yet still did nothing. Finally he let his head drop forward against his chest, not so much in despair as resignation, a devoted Bureau man to the last.
    Outside the sun beat heedlessly upon the nearly empty plaza.
    "Mulder!" Scully shouted, and at last he relented, hurrying alongside her to the car.
    "For chrissakes, get in," urged the agent standing in the open door of the driver's side. "It's going to go at any second—"
    Mulder slid into the backseat, Scully into the front, and the car peeled off. They turned to gaze out the rear window, watching as the building receded—ten yards, twenty, not quickly enough.
    And suddenly it exploded, the entire edi-fice consumed by a immense ball of flame that ripped up from the bottom floor, expanding until it seemed to devour everything in sight. Smoke surged outward along with buckling steel girders and rippling waves of broken glass, and the air thundered deafeningly.
    Scully cried out but her voice was swallowed by that terri-ble roar, her arm bashed against the car door as the bomb's impact traveled through the air and sent the car caroming across the plaza, slam-ming against the back of a car parked on the street. It lifted up in the back and then slammed back down; all around them other cars did the same. There was a sharp crack , and the rear window collapsed into granular parti-cles of safety glass, showering the two of them.
    "You okay?" bellowed the agent from the front seat.
    "I-I think so," Scully gasped.
    Outside shards of glass were everywhere. The air seethed with blackened debris, ash and metal and burning plastic. As Mulder and Scully watched, horrified, the entire side of the building emerged from the smoke, so that they could see inside to where flames raced along abandoned corridors and through the ravaged remains of cubicles and offices. From ground floor to rooftop fires raged, and in the distance the first sirens began to wail.
    In the backseat Mulder shook his head, dis-persing glittering bits of safety glass. Slowly he leaned out the broken side window to open